The Planter’s Wife
by
I
She was the daughter of a ruined squatter, whose family had been pursued with bad luck; he was a planter, named Houghton. She was not an uncommon woman; he was not an unusual man. They were not happy, they might never be; he was almost sure they would not be; she had long ceased to think they could be. She had told him when she married him that she did not love him. He had been willing to wait for her love, believing that by patience and devotion he could win it. They were both sorry for each other now. They accepted things as they were, but they knew there was danger in the situation. She loved some one else, and he knew it, but he had never spoken to her of it–he was of too good stuff for that. He was big and burly, and something awkward in his ways. She was pretty, clear-minded, kind, and very grave. There were days when they were both bitter at heart. On one such day they sat at luncheon, eating little, and looking much out of the door across the rice fields and banana plantations to the Hebron Mountains. The wife’s eyes fixed on the hills and stayed. A road ran down the hill towards a platform of rock which swept smooth and straight to the sheer side of the mountain called White Bluff. At first glance it seemed that the road ended at the cliff–a mighty slide to destruction. Instead, however, of coming straight to the cliff it veered suddenly, and ran round the mountain side, coming down at a steep but fairly safe incline. The platform or cliff was fenced off by a low barricade of fallen trees, scarcely noticeable from the valley below. The wife’s eyes had often wandered to the spot with a strange fascination, as now. Her husband looked at her meditatively. He nodded slightly, as though to himself. She looked up. Their understanding of each other’s thoughts was singular.
“Tom,” she said, “I will ride the chestnut, Bowline, to that fence some day. It will be a big steeplechase.” He winced, but answered slowly. “You have meant to say that for a long time past. I am glad it has been said at last.”
She was struck by the perfect quietness of his tone. Her eyes sought his face and rested for a moment, half bewildered, half pitying.
“Yes, it has been in my mind often–often,” she said. “It’s a horrible thought,” he gravely replied; “but it is better to be frank. Still, you’ll never do it, Alice–you’ll never dare to do it.”
“Dare, dare,” she answered, springing to her feet, and a shuddering sigh broke from her. “The thing itself is easy enough, Tom.”
“And why haven’t you done it?” he asked in a hard voice, but still calmly.
She leaned one hand upon the table, the other lay at her cheek, and her head bent forward at him. “Because,” she answered, “because I have tried to be thoughtful for you.”
“Oh, as to that,” he said–“as to that!” and he shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“You don’t care a straw,” she said sharply, “you never did.”
He looked up suddenly at her, a great bitterness in his face, and laughed strangely, as he answered: “Care! Good God! Care!… What’s the use of caring? It’s been all a mistake; all wrong.”
“That is no news,” she said wearily. “You discovered that long ago.”
He looked out of the door across the warm fields again; he lifted his eyes to that mountain road; he looked down at her. “I haven’t any hope left now, Alice. Let’s be plain with each other. We’ve always been plain, but let us be plainer still. There are those rice fields out there, that banana plantation, and the sugar-cane stretching back as far as the valley goes–it’s all mine, all mine. I worked hard for it. I had only one wish with it all, one hope through it all, and it was, that when I brought you here as my wife, you would come to love me–some time. Well, I’ve waited, and waited. It hasn’t come. We’re as far apart to-day as we were the day I married you. Farther, for I had hope then, but I’ve no hope now, none at all.”